Considered
and decided by Stoneburner,
Presiding Judge; Peterson, Judge; and Minge, Judge.

U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N

MINGE, Judge

Appellant challenges his conviction,
claiming that it was based on evidence discovered as a result of an illegal
seizure. Because we conclude that the
police stopped and approached appellant based on a reasonable, articulable
suspicion, the district court properly denied the motion to suppress the
evidence, and we affirm.

FACTS

At the
request of his friend, Thomas Mohr, appellant Richard Dobsinski drove Mohr to the
Target store on University Avenue
in St. Paul,
dropped him off, and waited for him in the parking lot. Mohr went inside the store and selected two
tee-shirts. He put one shirt inside his
jacket, paid for the other shirt, and attempted to leave the store. Off-duty police officer James Nelson observed
Mohr’s actions, detained him for shoplifting, and escorted him to the store’s
security office. There, Mohr asked
Officer Nelson if the detention would take long because appellant was waiting for
him in the parking lot. At Officer
Nelson’s request, Mohr described appellant’s vehicle as a black Cadillac that was
circling the parking lot and identified the vehicle on the store’s video surveillance
system, which monitored the parking lot.

Officer
Nelson called the St. Paul
police dispatcher and requested a traffic stop of appellant’s vehicle. Officer Gustafson responded to the call. Officers Gustafson and Nelson approached appellant’s
vehicle, which was now parked near the entrance to the Target store. Officer Nelson asked appellant for his
driver’s license and asked him what he was doing in the Target parking
lot. While talking with appellant, Officer
Nelson smelled alcohol and noticed that appellant’s eyes were bloodshot. The officers detained appellant in the back
of Officer Gustafson’s squad car and administered a preliminary breath test. Appellant registered a .062 alcohol
concentration. The officers checked
appellant’s driver’s license and discovered that it was subject to a drug and
alcohol restriction. Appellant also failed
to provide valid proof of insurance.

Appellant
was charged with violation of a restricted driver’s license, a gross
misdemeanor under Minn. Stat. § 171.09, subd. 1(d)(1) (Supp. 2005), and no
proof of insurance, a misdemeanor under Minn. Stat. § 169.791, subd. 2 (2004). At the preliminary hearing, appellant moved
to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the seizure and dismiss the
charges, arguing that the police officers lacked an adequate basis for the
initial investigative stop. The state
stipulated that appellant was seized. After
a hearing, the district court denied appellant’s suppression motion.

Appellant submitted his
case to the district court in accordance with State v. Lothenbach, 296 N.W.2d 854 (Minn. 1980), stipulating to
the facts as outlined in the complaint, police reports, and hearing testimony. The district court found appellant guilty but
stayed execution of the sentence pending this appeal.

D
E C I S I O N

The only issue on
appeal is whether the district court erred in denying appellant’s suppression motion. “When reviewing pretrial orders on motions to
suppress evidence, we may independently review the facts and determine, as a
matter of law, whether the district court erred in suppressing—or not
suppressing—the evidence.” State v. Harris, 590 N.W.2d 90, 98 (Minn. 1999). A district court’s determination of
reasonable suspicion to support an investigatory stop is reviewed de novo. State
v. Britton, 604 N.W.2d 84, 87 (Minn.
2000).

The
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 10 of
the Minnesota Constitution protect the “right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, §
10. Warrantless searches are per se
unreasonable, subject to limited exceptions.
State v. Burbach, 706 N.W.2d
484, 488 (Minn.
2005). One such exception allows
officers to conduct investigative stops (Terry
stops) so long as the officers have an objective and articulable basis for
suspecting criminal activity. State v. Smallwood, 594 N.W.2d 144, 155
(Minn.
1999).

To
determine the legality of an investigative stop, we “review the events
surrounding the stop and consider the totality of the circumstances in
determining whether the police had a reasonable basis justifying the stop.” Britton,
604 N.W.2d at 87. An officer may conduct
a limited stop to investigate suspected criminal activity if the officer can
point to “specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational
inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” State
v. Pike, 551 N.W.2d 919, 921-22 (Minn.
1996) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S. Ct.
1868, 1880 (1968)) (quotation marks omitted).
We use an objective standard to evaluate whether an investigatory stop
was supported by reasonable suspicion. State v. Balenger, 667 N.W.2d 133, 139
(Minn. App. 2003), review denied (Minn. Oct. 21,
2003). To establish such suspicion, “[t]he
police must only show that the stop was not the product of mere whim, caprice,
or idle curiosity . . . .” Pike, 551 N.W.2d at 921 (quotation
omitted).

Here, Officer
Nelson formed his suspicion that appellant was involved in Mohr’s shoplifting
scheme on the basis of specific and articulated facts: Mohr attempted to leave
the store with two shirts shortly after appellant dropped Mohr off at Target. Mohr told Officer Nelson that appellant was
waiting for him in the parking lot. Mohr
described the type of vehicle appellant was driving. Mohr and the officers identified such a
vehicle on the security monitors as the vehicle was circling the Target parking
lot. Officer Nelson observed a vehicle
fitting Mohr’s description stopped close to the door of the store. According to Officer Nelson’s testimony,
these particular facts were consistent, in his experience and training, with
his suspicion that appellant was involved in the shoplifting scheme.

Not
only was Officer Nelson’s suspicion formed on the basis of specific and
articulable facts, the investigatory stop was also reasonable. The investigative stop was limited in
nature. Nelson simply approached
appellant’s vehicle, asked appellant what he was doing at Target, and asked him
for his driver’s license. And while it
is true that the facts here are also consistent with lawful behavior, it is
well established that “wholly lawful conduct might justify the suspicion that
criminal activity is afoot.” Britton, 604 N.W.2d at 89. Here, the officers did not seek to stop just
any vehicle in the parking lot. Instead,
the officers stopped the particular black Cadillac that Mohr identified as
having driven him to Target, the same vehicle that Officer Nelson observed
circling the parking lot, and the vehicle now parked near the front entrance to
the store. Appellant argues that there were
at least two black Cadillacs in the parking lot. Although confusion between the two vehicles
was a risk factor, the fact that there were only two similar vehicles does not
so diminish the officers’ basis for acting as to eliminate the existence of
reasonable, articulable suspicion. Here,
the officers’ suspicion that appellant was assisting Mohr was reasonably based
on the totality of the circumstances, and the officers’ investigative stop was
not based upon a whim, caprice, or idle curiosity.

Appellant
argues that investigatory stops are generally limited to suspected ongoing
criminal activity and that because Mohr’s misdemeanor shoplifting attempt had
been foiled, and because Mohr had been arrested before the officers stopped
appellant’s vehicle, the stop was unlawful. The essence of appellant’s argument is that by
definition Terry stops conducted to
investigate misdemeanors that have been completed are unreasonable. Appellant cites Blaisdell v. Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 375 N.W.2d 880 (Minn. App.
1985), aff’d on other grounds, 381 N.W.2d
849 (Minn.
1986), and a recent unpublished court of appeals decision for support.

In Blaisdell, law enforcement agents
conducted a Terry stop to investigate
a misdemeanor theft that was completed two months prior to the stop. Id. at 881. We held that “vehicle stops to investigate
completed misdemeanors violate the fourth amendment of the United States
Constitution.” Id.
at 884. But, we noted that we did “not
decide the difficult question of when an offense becomes a ‘completed’ crime,
since the gas theft in question occur[ed] two months before the stop was
certainly ‘completed.’” Id.
at 882 n.2. We added, “courts should be
hesitant to declare criminal conduct which occurred in the very recent past
(such as the same day of the stop) to be ‘completed.’” Id.

Like
the Blaisdell court, we do not define
when a misdemeanor offense becomes completed so as to bar subsequent
investigative stops. Here, the time
between Mohr’s shoplifting offense and the investigative stop of appellant was
short, just a matter of minutes. This
distinguishes this case from Blaisdell. Appellant’s position, that Mohr’s shoplifting
offense was “completed” at the moment he was detained by Officer Nelson and that
the officers were barred as a matter of law from conducting a Terry stop to further investigate the
offense, is inconsistent with Blaisdell’s
instruction that courts be hesitant to declare criminal conduct in the very
recent past to be completed.
Essentially, appellant claims that once completed, the crime is stale,
that the lack of imminence or urgency diminishes the need for action, and that it
was improper to make a stop unless other circumstances provided an independent basis
for the stop. Because Mohr had just been
apprehended and his shoplifting offense had just been prevented, the
investigatory stop of appellant was reasonable.
The events were contemporaneous and related. Appellant’s stop took place within the time
frame of Mohr’s offense. In this
setting, a Terry stop is
appropriate. If adopted, appellant’s
position would unnecessarily chill a legitimate and related criminal
investigation that is occurring in the context of the very offense that law
enforcement has interrupted.

Because
we conclude that Officer Nelson’s limited investigative stop was based on
reasonable articulable suspicion and was contemporaneous with the principal
shoplifting offense, we affirm.